To understand the background to family constellation work, we have to open ourselves up to the idea that within any family or group there is a common soul at work, a family or group soul.
I shall try to give a picture of the function such a group soul must have had in the past, and still has today. I shall also say something about the 'orders' (laws) that this could bring into being. I have an image. My aim is not necessarily to look for historical accuracy or to prove something. Rather, I want to enable people to take action towards change. My concern is to widen our understanding of the role of conscience and those inexplicable impulses that often turn out to be tragic. This should open the way to help us to resolve tragic entanglements, or even to avoid them in the first place.
The original grouping of peoples was in tribes of approximately twenty to thirty members. They were highly interdependent and it was impossible for any individual to leave the group, whatever the situation. Likewise, it was unimaginable that anyone could be excluded from this kinship, with the possible exception of someone murdering another member of the group. An echo of this is to be found in the story of Cain and Abel.

The Right to Belong

In such a group there were two fundamental 'orders'. The first 'order' was that every member had an equal right to belong to the group. It was unthinkable for any member to deny this right to another member. By the same token, each member would have known that the well being of the group had priority over his, or her, own personal needs. Within a nomadic group the old and the sick would inevitably remain behind and be abandoned as soon as they became a burden to the group. They were prepared to die and nobody would have stood in their way because of a personal attachment.
A story once told to me by a medical doctor confirmed that something similar to this still exists today. He was working in a hospital in Tanzania. One day some men from the Massai tribe brought in a young man on a stretcher. He had an injured leg. When the chief medical officer examined him he realized that the gangrene in his leg was so advanced that the leg could not be saved. He called the men and informed them that it had to be amputated or the young man would die. The men said that they needed to consult with each other first. After an hour they returned and announced: "We have decided that he must die."
For the same reason, weak and disabled children were left behind and abandoned in nomadic groups. Here again, the survival of the group had precedence over any compassion for an individual. Was this cruel? No, they knew their limits and they consented to them. Here we see that the right to belong in the group was limited and had to be weighed against the well being of the group as a whole. Everything was orientated toward the survival and continuation of the group.
The Rank Order of Precedence
The second 'order' in such a group guaranteed precedence to earlier or older members over those who came later, or were younger. In this way, everyone in the group had his, or her, place in the system. In the course of time, an individual progressed quite naturally from a lower to a higher position within the hierarchy and thus there were no conflicts over ranking in the group.

The Collective Conscience

These two 'orders' - the equal right to belong, and the precedence of earlier or older members - did not emerge out of any rational consideration. They were predetermined for the group through a "collective conscience". Any transgression against these 'orders' would result in a bad conscience and the ensuing feeling of guilt would ensure that an individual returned to an appropriate respect for the 'orders'. We can also call it a "group conscience" or a "family conscience", and it is different from the "personal conscience" that I shall be discussing shortly. In contemporary society, this family conscience has become largely unconscious, but in pre-historic times, in a tribal group, it must have been conscious, at least in so far as it caused feelings of guilt in its members if the 'orders' were transgressed, and feelings of innocence once the wrongdoing was recognized and atoned for.

The Personal Conscience

As bartering and trade developed between small tribal groups, so the concept of "us" and "them" developed, as well as the sense of "belonging" or "not belonging". Subsequently, this led to a differentiation between "good" and "bad", or "better than" and "less good than". At a later stage such differentiations also occurred within the group with assertions like: "I am better than you", or "I have more right than you to belong". So alongside the "collective conscience" and its attendant feelings of guilt and innocence, there developed a "personal conscience" that was guided by moral imperatives of good and bad. This personal conscience led to a process of individuation and an individual consciousness as different members within the group held different values from each other. Thereafter there developed a polarization between the individual and the group, and between individual freedom and the norms and expectations of the group.
In the course of this development, the norms and laws relating to the collective conscience were now pushed into the realm of the unconscious and they would no longer be expressed directly. In the same way, as individual experience became more important than the needs of the group, so personal conscience took over much of the place previously occupied by the collective conscience. This went so far, that individuals interpreted the voice of the personal conscience as the voice of God giving them the right to set themselves up against the group norms. This marked the culmination of the separation of the individual from the group and its collective conscience.

However, this collective conscience must not be forgotten. In fact, it cannot be ignored because it is the basis of all human co-existence, and will always be so. No matter how wide a tree can spread its trunk and branches, without its roots, it will die. In terms of human relationships, this does not mean that we must doubt the value of the role of personal conscience. It does mean, however, that we need to become aware of our roots again, and allow ourselves to be carried, nourished and limited by them.

Family Constellations

What does all this mean for family constellation? In family constellations the different ways in which personal conscience and collective conscience take effect, are revealed and experienced. The frightening and dangerous consequences of the repression and denial of the collective conscience can be brought to light. This is where, despite our best intentions, failure occurs in terms of life threatening illnesses, grave accidents, criminality and suicide. All these symptoms point towards an ignorance of and transgression of the 'orders' of the collective conscience. At the same time they also give an insight into how these entanglements might be resolved, diminished, or possibly avoided in the future.
In constellations we can often see how the personal conscience unknowingly taps into the 'orders' of collective conscience, with negative consequences. So for example, in these sentences said by a child to a parent: "I follow you", or "I do it in your place", or "I sacrifice myself for you", we can recognize the underlying impulse of the collective conscience that the interest of the 'whole' has priority over the personal wishes of the individual. However, while adhering to one of the orders of the collective conscience, it transgresses the order of rank or precedence. In the collective conscience the young cannot take over a responsibility from an elder, but the personal conscience has no regard for 'prior' where precedence is given to those who come first. Here we see how the collective conscience, operating at an unconscious level, defeats any attempt made by someone to put themselves in the place of another, even though their effort may be in line with their individual personal conscience.
Family constellations give us an insight into what lies behind many tragic fates and they allow for the possibility of beneficial change for all of us. The work honors the demands of the collective conscience and brings them back into our awareness again, without compromising the individual gains made through the personal conscience. It connects the two consciences at a higher level, at the level of what we might call the "conscience of the greater soul". If this is achieved, then an individual can consent to the underlying 'orders' of the collective conscience, but at the same time can go beyond these limitations. In the service of this greater something, it is possible to keep intact that which belongs to our human evolution, and at the same time to grow as individuals and to find maximum personal fulfillment.